(London Oct 10) – Imran Khan Flood Relief (IKFR) UK held a very successful charity dinner on October 9 2010 at the Coliseum Suite in East London. The dinner was sold out with more than 600 guests attending. Key sponsors were Lahore Kebab House (Mohammad Siddique) and MKRF (GEO).

As soon as Mr Khan arrived, Ms. Durdana (ex BBC presenter) started the event by inviting Allama Hafiz Mohammad Jamshed for Talawat Quran Pak. Atif Chaudhary, a key member of the IKFR events team gave an overview of the situation in Pakistan and the objectives of the dinner which were to raise funds for the flood victims. Next came Ms Rabia Zia (IKFR UK) who acknowledged & thanked all the guests, including the sponsors, the raffle prize donors (Khwaja Imtiaz, Zameer Haider, Moni Das) & the donors for the auction (Arfan Akram, Nabeel Mussarat, Rashid Sultan) as well as the IKFR UK dinner team. Ms Zia provided an update on the funds collected so far by IKFR UK which total £ 657000. After dinner, Mr. Imran Khan & Ms Zia met with individual guests to thank them for their support and participation.

Mr Khan then took the stage and gave an overview of what IKFR is doing in the short, medium and long term for the flood victims in Pakistan. At present IKFR has provided immediate relief by sending trucks full of food and medicine to 35,000 families. Also 55,000 families have been helped through medical relief centers that have setup. IKFR is also providing seeds to 200,000 farmers in time for the next harvest. This will prevent food shortages next year.

Mr Khan then went on to describe the model villages that IKFR is building which include houses, proper sewerage, water and electric supply lines, roads, a medical centre, a community centre, a school and other amenities as well as seed and livestock for the families. IKFR plans to build approximately 100 of these model villages based on impartial selection through a ballot. A village can comprise of 200 to 1200 homes depending on the size of the community. An average home costs approximately PKR 125,000 to 150,000 (£1500). However this cost will vary across provinces. Thus a village will cost approximately £500,000. IKFR will also provide zero percent micro financing so that people can re-build their lives. Imran Khan also said that IKFR is committed to keeping the administration’s costs at a minimal which are at 0-1 % at present and will be kept at this mark. Mr Khan explained that people all over the world can participate in this effort by ‘adopting a village’ as part of the reconstruction / rehabilitation phase. IKFR is also working with Google Pakistan to avail the technology that will enable people to see the progress of each village.

Mr Khan explained that the Government of Pakistan has been ineffective as it has not been able to cope with the current scale of the disaster and even until now the Government does not seem to know what is required across Pakistan for the flood victims. IKFR has used the advice of the Disaster relief agencies to formulate the medium and long term plans. Mr Khan described the governance structure of IKFR including the Board members and said that we are using Ferguson’s for auditing the IKFR accounts.

The speech was followed by a short Q&A, and an auction in which Mr Khan participated fully. The evening ended with a raffle and entertainment by artist Qasim.

We would like to thank all the volunteers who made this event a success starting with Atif Chaudhary, Zaid Ansari, Rizwan Chand, Asim Khan, Khurram Naeem, Faisal Khwaja, Sobia Zia, Kashif Chaudhary, Yaseen Ilyaas, Sadia Afghan, Muhammad Qasim, Arfan Akram, Yaseen Shah, Shazaib, Saleem, Faraz Anjum, Mr Akram, Ahmad Raza, Ali, Furqan, Ibrahim Dar for photgraphs and Latif Qureshi for the video. We would also like to thank the media and journalists for their coverage including all the security volunteers.

Suggestion For Imran Khan
plz try to establish the villages before next elections coz we don’t want that in election compaigne even a single person raise ones finger upon you.And it would be better for you to win and clean sweep the election.you must try for two third majority in the house to run the govt.according to your own style.we see you in two third majority.Aameen